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Banks can't live with commercial lending and can't live without it these days, two earnings reports Friday showed. First Niagara's commercial loans rose while TCF's fell. But TCF's margin is much higher and fell less sharply than First Niagara's.
July 25 -
First Niagara Financial Group in Buffalo, N.Y., reported higher quarterly profit after increased commercial and auto lending offset an rise in spending and a decline in fee income.
July 25 -
First Niagara Financial (FNFG) in Buffalo, N.Y., has recruited a former executive at JPMorgan Chase (JPM) to join its board.
July 1
First Niagara Financial in Buffalo, N.Y., plans to
A decline in branch traffic and a rise in digital banking led to the closures, the $38.6 billion-asset bank said in a press release Friday.
"Across the financial services industry branch traffic, and the number of transactions handled per branch, are declining and self-service transactions are increasing. First Niagara is no different," said Mark Rendulic, an executive vice president at the bank, in the release. "A majority of customers prefer online, mobile and ATMs for simple transactions and their use of these technologies is growing."
The affected branches are located throughout First Niagara's four-state territory, in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Most of the branches are within three miles of another branch, the bank said in the release.
Following the closures, First Niagara will operate about 390 branches.
No details about staff layoffs were provided, although the bank said in the release that affected employees would either "transition to new, consumer-facing roles" or be able to apply for new positions.
The closures come just a month after the First Niagara
First Niagara announced in January that it would invest
